Establishment of continuous multiple sclerosis brain cultures after transformation with PML-SV40 virus.

PML-SV40 virus was used to transform cells from explants and monolayer subcultures of human brain derived from biopsies or autopsies of MS cases, as well as from 1 case of Jakob-Creutzfeldt disease (JC), 1 case of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and several cases without CNS disease. The success of transformation depended on the growth condition of the culture at the time of infection but at present at least 14 cell lines, 10 derived from MS, 2 from JC, 1 from ALS and 1 from a normal non-CNS patient are maintained in continuous culture.